216. Programme for Daily Practice.

1. That the student ambitious of marked skill in Elocution may retain those principles which he has been taught in the preceding lessons, and confirm their practice by habit, the following programme of daily exercises is presented.

2. It must not be inferred that this is the measure of practice which the student is to impose upon himself; nor will he who aspires to the highest excellence stop with practice; he will read, study, observe, and investigate.

3. It may safely be asserted that all the great orators of our own and other countries have ever been the most industrious students of nature, art, and science.

DAILY EXERCISE.

1. Assume the four positions in successive and promiscuous order-five times.

2. Exercise in Arm Motions, Art. 207 and 208, with musical accompaniment - march time, if possiblefrom 5 to 10 minutes.

3. Practice the different methods of Respiration,always inhaling through the nostrils.

4. Repeat the Alphabet distinctly from five to ten times in one breath.

5. Count sixty, naming each number distinctly and firmly in one breath.

6. Give with decided energy the 44 elementary sounds (not their names).

7. Pronounce with exaggerated precision the following words:

Peremptory, comparable, despicable, obligatory, admiralty, intricacy, allegorist, conscientiousness, lugubriously, consecutiveness.

8. Read (or better) recite "The Two Boot Blacks," page 21, in 50 seconds.

9. Utter the sentence," Roll on old ocean gray!" as follows:

1. In the eight qualities of voice.
2. With nine degrees of force.
3. With the six forms of stress.
4. In seven degrees of pitch.

5. With five rates of movement.

10. Practice the diagrammed waves on pages 187 and 188.

VOICE PRESERVATION.

1. Keep the mind and body pure and healthy.
2. Breathe as directed under RESPIRATION.

3. Use no drinks during vocal exercise.
4. Avoid a long continued high pitch.
5. Consign tobacco to the mutes.
6. Use no stimulants of any kind.

7. Permit no compression about the neck.

8. Constantly cultivate pure tones.

9. Avoid affectation, arrogance, and irritability.

10. Keep the temper as a reserve force, under control.

["NATIONS AND HUMANITY."— George W. Curtis.]

It was not his olive valleys and orange groves which made the Greece of the Greek; it was not for his apple orchards or potato fields that the farmer of New England and New York left his plough in the furrow and marched to Bunker Hill, to Bennington, to Saratoga. A man's country is not a certain area of land, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle. The secret sanctification of the soil and symbol of a country is the idea which they represent; and this idea the patriot worships through the name and the symbol.

So, with passionate heroism, of which tradition is never weary of tenderly telling, Arnold von Winkelried gathers into his bosom the sheaf of foreign spears. So, Nathan Hale, disdaining no service that duty demands, perishes untimely, with no other friend than God and the satisfied sense of duty. So, through all history from the beginning, a noble army of martyrs has fought fiercely and fallen bravely for that unseen mistress, their country. So, through all history to the end, that army must still march, and fight, and fall. But countries and families are but nurseries and influences. A man is a father, a brother, a German, a Roman, an American; but beneath all these relations he is a man. The end of his human destiny is not to be the best German, or the best Roman, or the best father; but the best man he can be.

History shows us that the association of men in various nations is made subservient to the gradual advance of the whole human race; and that all nations work together towards one grand result. So, to the philosophic eye, the race is but a vast caravan forever moving, but seeming often to encamp for centuries at some green oasis of ease, where luxury lures away heroism, as soft Capua enervated the hosts of Hannibal.

But still the march proceeds, slowly, slowly, over mountains, through valleys, along plains, marking its course with monumental splendors, with wars, plagues, crime, - advancing still, decorated with all the pomp of nature, lit by the constellations, cheered by the future, warned by the past. In that vast march the van forgets the rear; the individual is lost; and yet the multitude is but many individuals. He faints, and falls, and dies; man is forgotten; but still mankind moves on, still worlds revolve, and the will of God is done in earth and heaven.

We of America, with our soil sanctified and our symbol glorified by the great ideas of liberty and religion, love of freedom and love of God, are in the foremost vanguard of this great caravan of humanity. To us rulers look, and learn justice, while they tremble; to us the nations look, and learn to hope, while they rejoice. Our heritage is all the love and heroism of liberty in the past; and all the great of the "Old World are our teachers.

Our faith is in God and the right; and God himself is, we believe, our Guide and Leader. Though darkness sometimes shadows our national sky, though confusion comes from error, and success breeds corruption, yet will the storm pass in God's good time, and in clearer sky and purer atmosphere our national life grow stronger and nobler, sanctified more and more, consecrated to God and liberty by the martyrs who fall in the strife for the just and true.

And so with our individual hearts, strong in love for our principles, strong in faith in our God, shall the nation leave to coming generations a heritage of freedom, and law, and religion, and truth, more glorious than the world has known before; and our American banner be planted first and highest on heights as yet unwon in the great march of humanity.

PART V.

217. GROUPING.

1. Grouping is the skilful arrangement of words, phrases and sentences, with regard to the elements employed in their delivery, into such groups as shall render their meaning clear, pleasing and impressive.

2. Effective grouping implies in addition to a knowledge and complete control of all the elements employed in vocal expression, a cultivated taste, good judgment and a clear perception of an author's meaning. Here we have the application of the whole art embraced in logic, rhetoric and elocution; for the process involves the science of thought, the laws of composition, and the art of vocal delivery.

3. It is grouping that distinguishes the forcible and captivating oration from the noisy harangue, — the soul-stirring rendition of a dramatic composition from the school-boy's drawling declamation. It is by judicious grouping that the perfect orator brings the image before our eyes, awakens the thrill in our hearts, and fires our souls with the loftiest emotions that animate our race.

4. No part of our subject requires such an extended